I agree with (edit: many parts of) this comment and I’ve made a mental note to stay extra vigilant in this regard and go out of my way to consider that I might be biased in Owen’s favor (I tend to really like people who seem unusually introspective and open about their exact motivations, potential flaws, etc).
Also, I want to emphasize that while I made comments here that tried to shift the balance more in one direction, I wouldn’t necessarily describe and condense this as”taking Owen’s side.” (I feel like the only comment that “took Owen’s side” without any caveats has more than 120 disagreement karma, which is a pretty clear statement.) And I want to say somewhere that this incident was a negative update for me not just in a social-implications sense (pattern of having made people uncomfortable in asymmetric power dynamics). It also affected my impression of the strength of Owen’s orientation and ability to overcome “self-serving traps.” Especially for the longtermist project where we can’t help but rely on the best judgment of a few expert researchers (because there aren’t really any short-and-unambiguously-relevant/helpful feedback loops we can check instead), having people with strong orientations of this sort feels essential. If I learn about someone spending a lot of attention on sex or romance in contexts where EA impact is at stake, it updates me negatively about their potential to steer us towards actual impact.
I agree with (edit: many parts of) this comment and I’ve made a mental note to stay extra vigilant in this regard and go out of my way to consider that I might be biased in Owen’s favor (I tend to really like people who seem unusually introspective and open about their exact motivations, potential flaws, etc).
Also, I want to emphasize that while I made comments here that tried to shift the balance more in one direction, I wouldn’t necessarily describe and condense this as”taking Owen’s side.” (I feel like the only comment that “took Owen’s side” without any caveats has more than 120 disagreement karma, which is a pretty clear statement.) And I want to say somewhere that this incident was a negative update for me not just in a social-implications sense (pattern of having made people uncomfortable in asymmetric power dynamics). It also affected my impression of the strength of Owen’s orientation and ability to overcome “self-serving traps.” Especially for the longtermist project where we can’t help but rely on the best judgment of a few expert researchers (because there aren’t really any short-and-unambiguously-relevant/helpful feedback loops we can check instead), having people with strong orientations of this sort feels essential. If I learn about someone spending a lot of attention on sex or romance in contexts where EA impact is at stake, it updates me negatively about their potential to steer us towards actual impact.